Road to Venator Fighting Championship 4: interview with Emrah Sonmez

The hunt for the Venator featherweight title held by Federico Mini is open. Someone who will try to take advantage of it at Venator Fighting Championship 4 to make the weight class gold his own is Emrah Sonmez (8-1 MMA), an Anglo-Turkish prospect undefeated after his pro debut.

A few days before the fight, “The Anatolian Wolf” answered the questions of MMA Today.

MMA Today: For Italian fans who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing you fight, how would you describe yourself as a mixed martial artist?

Emrah Sonmez: I think I’m well rounded, I’m quite relaxed and I know how to dictate a fight. I can wrestle, I can box, kickboxing, I do BJJ.I’ve competed in every aspect of MMA individually. I’m a black belt in kickboxing and also been doing freestyle wrestling for many years. All I can I say is the Italian fans are going to see something they have not seen before.

MT: Federico Mini is considered the #1 featherweight in Italy, in addition to being the reigning champion in Venator FC. Have you seen any footage about him? What impression of him did he leave you as a fighter?

ES: I’ve seen couple of videos of Federico and have studied him with my coaches, so we know what we are expecting and have made plans for it. I take every fight seriously and prepare my best for it no matter who it is. The feelings and the impressions are the same for this fight as they were for my previous ones.

ES: It’s a big opportunity like this, fighting in Venator FC. It will show my fighting and potential to a lot of MMA fans internationally. I’ve been waiting for something like this quite for sometime. Venator is a big show and a lot of fighters have been signed by the UFC from it.

MT: Should you win the match, do you see yourself defending the belt in Italy or will you give precedence to other promotions, for example Cage Warriors, in which you will appear on July 21st?

ES: For sure, once I win, I wouldn’t mind defending the belt, a champion is a real champion once he defended the belt, so I’ll be up for it for sure.

MT: Looking at your record, it turns out that you mostly beat fighters with a negative record or a 50:50 record in the win/loss ratio. What do you feel to say to those who doubt your skills according to all of this?

ES: In my fighting career I’ve always fought whom I’ve been matched up with, I’ve never really looked at their records to judge them. I’ve had a lot of last minute pullouts and had to be replaced with a different opponent. As a fighter, I believe you need to build slowly and slowly and gain all experience. As the record gets better, then the opponent level gets better. Those who doubt my skills are going to see something very high level in all aspects, the stand up, the wrestling and on the ground. I have a lot of experience from my amateur fighting days and have fought people who are better than my opponent coming up.